The Barnes of Writtle near Chelmsford in Essex were
originally Berners and were said to have been descended from Hugh de
Berners
whose name had appeared in the 1086 Domesday Book.

The first of these Berners was probably Thomas
Berners, born in Writtle around the year 1360.The family held the manor of Turges
or Sturgeons.John
Berners or Barnes of Turges died in Writtle in 1525.

His son John Barnes sold the estate soon
afterwards and moved to Hertfordshire.Johnís
brother William prospered at the time of the dissolution of the
monasteries and
was able to acquire for himself lands in Essex and elsewhere.

Barnes in Haslingden

Haslingden is a town in what was once the forest of
Rossendale
some twenty miles north of Manchester.The Barnes name first appeared there in 1557 when Ralph, Isabel
and
William Barnes were recorded as letting 21 acres to farm.Barnes were yeoman farmers in the 17th and
18th centuries. Joseph Barnes is thought
to have left Haslingden for New England around the year 1694.

By the late 18th century, handloom weaving
had become an important occupation in that area and for Barnes.For example:

Richard Barnes of Haslingden specified in his
will of 1788 that ďI
do hereby order my executors that they give
and deliver to Henry Barnes, son of John Barnes, one pair of woollen
looms with
the implements thereof belonging and to remain his and his heirs
forever.Ē

while
James Barnes in the 1798 rate survey at Haslingden Grane was recorded
as a
weaver at his cottage there.

The 19th century found a Barnes family as
inn-keepers in Haslingden, first in 1809 and later, at the New Black
Dog Inn,
in 1868.By the time of the 1881 census
the town of Haslingden had the highest concentration of the Barnes name
in
England.

The Barnes Memorial in Farnworth

James Rothwell Barnes from Bolton had established one of the
first cotton mills in the nearby village of Farnworth in 1828 and it
was his
son, Thomas, who took over and further expanded the business after his
father's
death in 1849.

In 1860 Thomas announced his intention of providing a park for
the community.The park was built and
handed over in 1864 in a ceremony that would have been a red-letter day
in a town the size of Liverpool or Manchester, let alone a small
village with a
population of just 8,000.The platform
contained some of Lancashire's most powerful and influential figures
who had
all come to see Gladstone open the park and, of course, speak.

In 1895 Thomas Barnes was still alive and the
local authorities decided to honor him with a bronze statue depicting
him at the
time of the parkís opening.

Barnes in Long
Island

William
Barnes of East Winch in Norfolk was reported to
have had eighteen children by two wives. A
tradition
handed down by Barnes descendants is that
three of the
sons and two of the daughters by his second wife came to New England
sometime in
the 1630ís.The sons were said to have
been Joshua,
Charles and William.The daughters have not been traced.

The three Barnes brothers eventually made their
way to Long Island.Joshua was first
recorded there in 1649, arriving in Southampton from Cape Cod by boat.He made his home in Southampton and died
there sometime in the 1690ís.

Charles and William were clearly brothers
(although some have disputed whether Joshua was in fact their brother).Charles was the first school teacher in East
Hampton.William had a less happy
time.He and his wife were divorced in
1648 (an almost unheard-of matter in those days) and he also fell out
with
Charles.He returned to England in 1658
and died three years later. Charles
and his family later settled in
Middletown, Connecticut.

Colonel Barnes at
Leonardtown

The
Georgian-style Tudor Hall mansion overlooks
Breton Bay in Maryland.It was built by
Colonel Abraham Barnes on a 1,100 acre Tidewater plantation that shared
boundaries with the port and county seat of Leonardtown.

The
house, started sometime before 1744, was
small with a central hall and a room on either side. The second
floor had
dormered bedrooms and there were outhouses, typical of plantation homes
at that
time, containing a kitchen, laundry unit, a garden house, and slave
quarters.

Colonel
Barnes was active in defending the
port of Leonardtown against English attacks in 1775 but died later on
in the
Revolutionary War.His estate was
bequeathed to his youngest son Richard.Tudor Hall was sold to the Key family in 1817.It now houses the St. Mary's Historical
Society.

Captain
William Morris Barnes

Captain William Morris Barnes was born in 1850 into
a shipowning family in St Johns, Newfoundland.He first went to sea when he was only eleven.His career seemed predestined and by the age
of 14 he was apprenticed to a Liverpool company, serving in their
sailing ships
working a triangular passage to St Johns, the Brazils and back to
Liverpool.

He tried to 'swallow the
anchor' when he married.But running a
grocery store was too mundane and he soon went back to sea,
transferring his
skills to the now dominant steamships.

At
the outbreak of the First World War, even though he was 64, he promptly
volunteered for service.The
authorities
told him to go home as he was too old.But he kept pestering them until they eventually gave in.During his war he
was mined or torpedoed three times.On
the last occasion he was badly injured and spent three days adrift in
an open
boat.

His various adventures were the
subject of an autobiography When Ships
Were Ships, written by Hilda Renbold Wortman from Barnesís own
stories and
recollections when he was 79.The book
came out in 1930.Their collaboration
became the inspiration
for Denys Wortmanís popular cartoon character of the Depression era,
Mopey
Dick.Barnes
himself died four years later in 1934 in New York.

Misfortune followed the Barnes family after
his death.Everything was lost during
the Depression and the Barnes boys were sent away to an orphanage.One Barnes
ran away at 14 and joined
the US Merchant Marine as a cabin boy.History obviously repeating itself!